Still wicked hot out here. A little better, but still well into the “stay inside” range. We elected not to heed that rule though, and instead traveled to a concert at an outdoor amphitheater. As it happens, we bought the tickets quite some time ago, well before the weather could have been forecast. Yeah, I suppose you could argue that the date was late July in northern California, and therefore it was a foregone conclusion that is was going to be hot. I guess my optimistic nature got the best of me. But anyway, the show was Tears for Fears, (yeah, of 1980’s fame,) and Cold War Kids (still old, but not THAT old,) opened for them. There was a rather lengthy list of “pros & cons” associated with this lineup for me, but at the end of the day we like going to concerts, so we went. That actually pretty much headed up the list of “pros,” along with the fact that the tickets were quite reasonably priced. Now, moving on to the “cons” list, it is a bit more extensive. The location was actually in Wheatland, CA, falling WELL outside the boundaries of my established travel area. It was a solid 1.5 hour drive each way. We were able to get a driver, which eliminated most of the unpleasantness, but it’s still a heck of a long time to sit in a car for me. Also in the list were the facts that I’m just not, and never was, a really big Tears for Fears fan. I do, however, generally like Cold War Kids, so that’s OK. The sound was borderline horrible though, so that kind of took away from it. Some outdoor venues are better than others I guess; this one wasn’t my favorite. I suppose the fact that we DO really enjoy shows won out, and I had a good time. Any show, regardless if I really wanted to see the group or not, is better than sitting home on the couch all night in my book.

Some friends joined us at the concert, and we elected to just stay at their house afterwards. This was nicely pre-planned, the dogs were left there to play with their pup and everything. Sunday when we got up, we enjoyed a great brunch to start the day. I’d picked up some breakfast steaks at our butcher shop, and we also had hash browns, scrambled eggs, and sourdough toast that Donette baked the night before. While it was indeed a great start to the day, it was also effectively the end of the day. We just aren’t used to staying out that late, and it really took it out of us. We limped back home after brunch, and the rest of the day was spent on the couch watching unremarkable movies. I suppose that falls under the “relaxing” category, sometimes erroneously referred to as “boring” or “unproductive.” Oh, we caught the end of the Royals game too; three game winning streak, what?!?!?! First one of the season if I heard right? While that is an absolutely embarrassing statistic this late in the season, I was glad to get to watch it anyway.